My own approach to literary problems is very like the one Dr. Johnson's blind housekeeper used when she poured tea-she put her finger inside the cup.

He and the girl had almost nothing to say to each other. One thing he did say was, 'I ain't got any tattoo on my back.' 'What you got on it?' the girl said. 'My shirt,' Parker said. 'Haw.' 'Haw, haw,' the girl said politely.

A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell them to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning.

The old woman was the kind who would not cut down a large old tree because it was a large old tree.

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.

I know that the writer does call up the general and maybe the essential through the particular, but this general and essential is still deeply embedded in mystery. It is not answerable to any of our formulas.

A God you understood would be less than yourself.